Abstract
Christopher Ali’s book Media Localism investigates—and challenges—current approaches to regulation of local broadcast media in the United States. The book compares developments in the U.S. regulatory environment since the turn of the millennium with those of Canada and the United Kingdom, providing an interesting international dimension at a timely moment. While the plight of local newspapers has (deservedly) garnered plenty of attention, this book shines a needed light on the threats that local broadcasters are currently facing. The book arrives in the midst of an unprecedented wave of consolidation and mergers in the broadcast industry. Ali is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia.
One of the main problems the author identifies is the lack of precision in defining “local,” particularly as that term relates to the airwaves. The default understanding has generally been geographic localism, and that conceptualization has undergirded the historical development of the broadcasting system in the United States since the Federal Radio Act of 1927. In the Internet era, social dimensions (communities of common interests) provide another definition. Ali rejects an either-or conceptualization of these definitions, suggesting instead that definitions of localism are “ . . . hegemonically constructed and reconstructed by powerful media corporations and media regulators themselves.” He cites examples of a political economy categorization of localism that favors commercial interests and marginalizes community media groups. “This system of political and commercial pressures works to stifle or obfuscate alternative regulatory proposals vis-à-vis the local from entering into concrete policy decisions,” he concludes.
Ali is sharply critical of large media companies in all three nations, arguing that those firms have engaged in what he terms “regulatory ransom”—that is, negotiating with regulators to make local activities contingent upon gaining other benefits. Ali decries the way in which “local” has over the years been defined in capitalist terms by for-profit companies. One such example is the Federal Communication Commission’s adoption of Nielsen Corporation’s DMA (designated market area) system of delineating broadcast areas in the United States. His primary argument is that his critical regionalism perspective seeks alternatives to the status quo, and he maintains that this perspective should be permitted into the regulatory discourse. Ali issues a clear call for change; he notes that American, British, and Canadian regulatory agencies have produced several extensive reports on the problems during the past few decades, but little constructive action has resulted.
The book is well researched. Ali employs critical discourse analysis to analyze policy documents and interviews with policy makers from each of the three nations. The author elaborates on his methodological approach in a separate essay appended to the main text. The core timeframe of the research is roughly from the mid-1990s (in the United States, beginning with the significant changes brought by the Telecommunications Act of 1996) to about 2013, with a later chapter written in 2015. As the publication cycle positioned the book before the 2016 election in the United States, the significant implications of the new administration’s approach to broadcast and Internet regulation are outside the scope of the book. Clearly, ongoing developments since publication continue to shape the conversation over broadcast regulation.
The relatively brief discussion of the development of the broadcast regulatory environments in the three case-study countries prior to the 1990s is bound to leave those interested in the historical underpinnings of the issue wanting more. The emergence of the commercially oriented U.S. system is briefly contrasted with the historical trajectory of the national (and protectionist) orientation of the public/private mix in Canada and with the highly centralized system in Britain. Expanding the historical context somewhat would be especially helpful to those less familiar with the media environments of any of the three countries examined in the book.
The international case-study approach is welcome, though, and the inclusion of Canada helps remedy a recurrent neglect of that nation in media scholarship. Comparative research can aid in the identification of patterns, commonalities, and models for emulation. The author’s “social democratic” recommendations for broadcast regulation are likely to be an easier sell in the United Kingdom and in Canada than in the United States, with its long history of commercial influence on broadcasting. Nonetheless, the questions raised by the book are worth contemplating in regulatory discussions, and the proposed remedies are not entirely without precedent even in the United States. As local news is increasingly imperiled and as so-called media deserts continue to expand, ideas such as cross-media subsidies may find more receptive audiences.
The book is likely overly specific to easily lend itself to wide adoption as a general media course text. Courses on media policy, media law, or media and society could benefit from inclusion of this book, and it would also be a worthwhile read for graduate students. Media scholars may find the book a useful addition to their collections as a valuable contribution to the study of media localism as well as for its approach to research on media policy more generally. The conversation about media localism is an important one, and this book raises critical questions and posits thought-provoking ideas for a path forward.